The Psychological Underpinnings Of Political Behavior
Chapter 34The Psychological Underpinningsof Political BehaviorJON A. KROSNICK, PENNY S. VISSER, AND JOSHUA HARDERdocumented a great deal about the dynamics of politicalcognition and action, even if not yet providing tools toassure world peace.This chapter tells the story of some of this research.Not addressed are topics of obvious relevance that chapters on politics in earlier editions of this Handbook havereviewed (Kinder, 1998; Kinder & Sears, 1985; Tetlock,1998) and topics dealt with in other chapters in this editionof the Handbook (e.g., Jost & Kay, this volume; Yzerbyt& Demoulin, this volume). This chapter ’s focus is insteadon the citizens of democratic nations, and this focusbrushes off the table many fascinating political topics wellworth the attention of social psychologists, including relations between governments, citizen life in nondemocraticnations, and more. In focusing on the domestic politicalaffairs of Americans, the chapter seeks to illuminate thevalue of the study of politics for social psychology and tobring into focus many lessons learned about the basics ofhuman nature and social relations as revealed through thecareful study of this domain.The next sections offer an overview of the field of political psychology and of the philosophical issue that guidesthis selective review of the literature: the requirements thatcitizens of a democracy may need to meet for the nation tothrive. The chapter then describes research findings on thedeterminants of people’s decisions about whether to vote ornot, people’s decisions about which candidate to vote for,people’s decisions about when to express their political preferences via other behaviors, and much more, always askingwhether the empirical evidence suggests worry about thefuture of democracies or confidence in their longevity.If social psychology’s goal is to understand how peopleinteract with and influence one another, the domain of politics offers a wonderful context in which to develop and testbasic theory. In fact, a focus on politics has been centralto social psychology since its birth. Kurt Lewin, StanleyMilgram, Solomon Asch, and many of our field’s founderswere motivated by the experience of Nazi Germany andsought to understand how authority figures and tendenciesto conform to social norms could produce barbaric behavior(see Allport, 1985). Allport (1954) illuminated the nature ofracial prejudice. Zimbardo’s research clarified how assigning people to roles in a prison system could elicit shockingbehaviors from them (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973).Kelman (1982, 1983) and Ross (Hackley, Bazerman, Ross,& Shapiro, 2005) have shed light on international conflict.Countless studies of attitude change have used persuasivemessages on political issues, illuminating the processesthat induce variation in such attitudes over time. In theseand other ways, the study of thinking about political matters and of the causes of political actions has been at thecenter of our discipline for decades.Many scholars would argue that these studies of socialrelations were not studies about politics that were meantto illuminate the causes and consequences of political cognition and behavior. Instead, these observers would say,those studies used politics as a convenient device for basicresearch. Asch was not interested in politics, they would say;he was interested in conformity. Milgram was not interestedin violence; he was interested in obedience. Zimbardo wasnot interested in prisons; he was interested in social roles.In fact, however, the research of these pioneers illuminated important aspects of how political cognition andaction unfold. This was probably a matter of great pridefor Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo. When asked why hechose a career in psychology, Robert Zajonc said it wasto understand the human mind in ways that can help toprevent future wars (Thorpe, 2005). Indeed, research hasOVERVIEW OF POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGYPolitical psychology is a thriving field of social scientificinquiry in its quest to understand the cognitive and social1288c34.indd 128812/24/09 11:58:56 AM
Requirements of Democracy 1289underpinnings and consequences of behaviors that entailthe exercise of social power and the governance of collectives of people. Much political psychology explainspolitical phenomena by taking a social-psychologicalperspective. Scholars could instead adopt an economicperspective, for example, attributing significant politicalevents to economic forces that are typically easily observable (e.g., Alt & Chrystal, 1983). In contrast, political psychologists place emphasis on unobservable psychologicalprocesses unfolding in the minds of political actors and onthe nature of social interaction among them.In practice, two somewhat different forms of political psychology exist (see Krosnick, 2002). Some ofthis work attempts to understand political phenomenaby applying theories that have already been developedthrough research done in psychological laboratories.Findings regarding mediation and moderation of realworld effects have often led to extensions and revisionsof the inspiring psychological theories. Other politicalpsychology research involves the development of completely new theory to provide psychological accounts ofpolitical phenomena, often without building on existingpsychological research. The empirical testing and refinement of these new theories also contributes to basicunderstanding of how the mind works and how socialinteraction takes place.A series of handbook publications document the vitality and longevity of the field. The first Handbook ofPolitical Psychology was published in 1973 (edited byJeanne Knutson), and new volumes have been publishedregularly since then (Borgida, Federico, & Sullivan, 2009;Hermann, 1986; Iyengar & McGuire, 1993; Monroe, 2002;Sears, Huddy, & Jervis, 2003). Two books of collected keyreadings in the field have been published (Jost & Sidanius,2004; Kressel, 1993). The journal Political Psychologyhas been in print since 1979. Articles on political psychology often appear in the top journals of social psychologyand political science. Courses on political psychology areroutinely offered at colleges and universities around theworld. Since 1978, the International Society of PoliticalPsychology (ISPP) has been the field’s professional association, sponsoring annual conferences and coordinatingpublication, outreach, and educational opportunities. Since1991, the Summer Institute in Political Psychology hastrained almost 1,000 young scholars and professionals inthe field.REQUIREMENTS OF DEMOCRACYA guiding principal of much work in political psychologyis the notion that for a democratic nation to survive andc34.indd Sec1:1289thrive, its government must be “by the people and for thepeople.” Put simply, government should do what its citizenswant done. One mechanism to encourage this outcome isfor citizens to communicate their desires to government.If government knows what actions its population supportsand what actions it opposes, policy can be designed accordingly, to be faithful to the public’s will.For such communication to occur and to be helpful,three conditions must be met: (1) citizens must have realattitudes toward government policy options; (2) thoseattitudes must be expressed behaviorally; and (3) those attitudes must be wise. Such behavioral expression can occurin many ways. One is voting in elections. However, votingfor a particular candidate for president of the United Statesdoes not clearly and precisely indicate support or opposition for particular government actions. Voting is at best ablunt instrument with which to direct government policymaking in a crude way. To the extent that candidates differin their likely policy pursuits, voting for one over otherscan increase the likelihood that government will pursueparticular policy directions. But a vote for one candidatedoes not, in itself, clearly communicate which policies avoter wishes to see enacted.A second blunt mechanism of sending signals to government is the expression of approval or disapprovalof political actors in national surveys. The news mediaroutinely conduct surveys of representative samples ofAmericans and ask for performance appraisals of thepresident and of the U.S. Congress, as well as of governors, senators, and other legislators. If the public gives athumbs up, this can be taken as endorsement of a politician’s policy pursuits and thereby perpetuate them, anda thumbs down can similarly send a message requestingredirection.One alternative approach that can be much more targeted and clear is participation in grassroots activism. Acitizen can write a letter directly to the president or to aCongressional representative or can telephone the representative’s office to express a preference. A citizen canwrite a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine,which may ultimately appear in print. Or a citizen can posta message on an Internet blog.Another approach is to support the activities of lobbyingorganizations, who send such messages on behalf of manycitizens. The National Rifle Association, Greenpeace, TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union, and numerous other suchorganizations exist importantly to pressure government totake particular actions on specific policy issues. Citizenswho support these organizations by giving money to themand by participating in organized letter-writing campaigns,marches on the Capital steps, and get-out-the-vote effortsfacilitate the expression of specific policy desires.12/24/09 11:58:57 AM
1290 The Psychological Underpinnings of Political BehaviorLastly, citizens can send messages by answering policy-focused questions in national surveys that are widelypublicized by the news media. These surveys offer opportunities to express positive or negative attitudes, andgovernment officials are aware of such measurements ofpublic opinion and often commission their own such measurements, so surveys constitute a pipeline for transferringpublic desires to government.Much of the research done in political psychologyinforms an understanding of these processes. To whatextent and under what circumstances do citizens havegenuine attitudes toward government policy options? Towhat extent and under what circumstances are those attitudes well informed? To what extent and under what circumstances do citizens express their policy preferencesbehaviorally? This chapter reviews some of this evidenceand considers its implications for the future of democraticgovernments.Reconsidering Americans’ CompetenceMany analysts of the psychology of mass politics havemade the observation that most Americans know little or nothing about national and international politics(e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1993, 1996; Kinder &Sears, 1985). Any such claim about the engagement andcompetence of democratic citizens has tremendouslyimportant implications for the health and longevity of anation. If democratic government is to be by the peopleand for the people, the hands of a nation’s citizens mustbe on the country’s steering wheel. If this is true, and yetif most citizens are looking somewhere other than theroad ahead most of the time while driving, the chances ofdisaster are far from minimal.Are most Americans uninformed about most mattersfacing their government? Certainly, a great deal of empirical evidence has been put forth for decades to support thisclaim. Since the earliest scientific surveys of the Americanpublic, researchers asked quiz questions and have givenrespondents poor grades.According to one review of many national surveys,almost all respondents were familiar with the president,and majorities recognized the names of some senators, butfewer than 50% of citizens recognized many other officeholders and candidates (Kinder & Sears, 1985). Likewise,according to another review of survey results (Delli Carpini& Keeter, 1993), large majorities of respondents knew thename of the current vice president and their governor andof various well-publicized leaders of foreign countries,and majorities knew the party affiliation of the president,knew which party had the most seats in the House ofRepresentatives, and knew whether the Republican partyc34.indd Sec1:1290was more conservative than the Democratic party. Butminorities were familiar with various prominent U.S. senators and Congressional representatives or recognized thenames of other foreign leaders.In terms of the process of government, a large majorityknew how many terms a person could be elected presidentof the United States, but minorities knew how long a senator ’s term in office lasts, who nominates federal judges,and the percent of Congressional votes that are neededto override a presidential veto (Delli Carpini & Keeter,1993).On specific policy issues, numerous surveys have documented rampant lack of knowledge. For example, althoughhuge majorities of national survey respondents knew whowould pay for the savings and loan bailout in 1990, knewthat oil was in short supply in 1974, knew what happenedat Three Mile Island in 1974, and knew in 1985 that thefederal budget deficit had increased since 1981, smallminorities could explain in 1986 what Roe v. Wade wasabout, knew the percent of poor people who were children,knew in 1980 what acid rain is, or knew in 1979 what thalidomide is (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996).However, important new developments in politicalpsychology raise questions about whether this sort ofevidence convincingly documented a pervasive lackof essential knowledge among American citizens. Tomake claims about how knowledgeable Americans areabout political matters, one would ideally first specify auniverse of knowledge that people “should” possess tobe competent at directing a nation. Then, one would randomly select a sample of pieces of information from thatcorpus and build questions to tap whether members ofa representative sample of Americans possess each sampled bit.This has never been done. Numerous surveys of representative samples of Americans have asked quiz questionsto gauge possession of facts. However, no scholarly efforthas begun by defining a universe of knowledge that thosequestions supposedly represent, and scholars have veryrarely offered rationales for why they chose the questiontopics they did rather than others instead.No doubt, it would be possible to design a test that mostAmericans would fail, asking about such obscure matters asthe history of economic policy making in Peru. Likewise,it would be possible to design a test that most Americanswould pass, asking who is currently serving as presidentof the United States, the name of the building in whichthe president usually sleeps when in Washington, D.C.,and the month and day on which terrorists flew airplanesinto the World Trade Center. Before claims are made abouthow knowledgeable Americans are about politics, thisarbitrary quality of testing must be overcome. But to date,12/24/09 11:58:57 AM
Requirements of Democracy 1291it has not. Any test of political knowledge can reveal howmany people possess the specific facts sought by the testitems, but generalizing from those items to the universe ofknowledge seems tenuous.Even if past survey questions assessing public knowledge are assumed to have addressed a representativesample of topics, the evidence thus produced cannot betrusted, because of the way the questions were constructedand administered. Two types of questions have been askedin surveys: closed-ended and open-ended. In closedended questions, respondents have usually been asked tochoose from one of various offered response options, asin this example (see z.aspx):Which of the following are the inalienable rights referred to inthe Declaration of Independence?A.B.C.D.E.life, liberty, and propertyhonor, liberty, and peaceliberty, health, and communitylife, respect, and equal protectionlife, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessEducational testing research documents that performance on such items hinges not only on the respondent’sfamiliarity with the question’s subject matter but onhow difficult the “distractor” response options are (e.g.,Kline, 1986). For anyone who majored in AmericanPolitics in college, reading options A–D in this contextmight induce a smile. The distractors are all structurallysimilar to the right answer (naming three “rights”), andthey are all plausible. But for people who have heardabout the Declaration of Independence only very occasionally in school and have never read it, this might be amuch tougher question.What if the question were asked this way instead:Which of the following are the inalienable rights referred to inthe Declaration of Independence?A. to own a boat, to laugh occasionally, and to have a goodmeal dailyB. to have a pet, to sleep in a bed every night, and to breatheair dailyC. to live, to learn, and to loveD. to vacation in a country away from home, to chop vegetables with a knife, and to get regular haircutsE. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessThis question might bring smiles to the faces of allsurvey respondents, or worse, might lead respondents towonder about the researchers’ competence or seriousnessc34.indd Sec1:1291or both. Yet answers to such a question would also mostlikely indicate that the vast majority of Americans possessthis piece of knowledge.Pointing out such a basic element of test theory (thatitem difficulty hinges on the difficulty of the foils in aclosed-ended question) might seem silly. But no empiricaleffort justifies the selection of distractors used in political knowledge quizzes. Most likely, no set of distractorsis “optimal”—difficult distractors will yield poorer performance than easy distractors. Thus, closed-ended questionscannot be used to assess proportions of people who do ordo not know a particular fact sufficiently well to receivecredit for it.One way to circumvent this challenge is to ask openended questions instead, thus avoiding the need to specify any answer choices. Numerous national surveys fordecades have included such questions and have suggestedthat most Americans lack political knowledge. For example, the American National Election Studies (ANES) hasasked questions like this:Now we have a set of questions concerning various publicfigures. We want to see how much information about themgets out to the public from television, newspapers and thelike . . . William Rehnquist—What job or political office doeshe NOW hold?Recently, new revelations have cast doubt on findings produced using such questions. A new investigationrevealed that using open-ended answers to decide whethera respondent has possession of a piece of information istricky business—a subjective judgment call in many cases(Gibson & Caldeira, 2009). Some respondents clearly givewhat sounds like a correct answer (e.g., “He is Chief Justiceof the U.S. Supreme Court”), and others clearly give anincorrect answer (e.g., “He is CEO of General Electric”),but many people give answers that are not exactly correct but would be considered by many observers to be closeenough to count, such as: Supreme Court justice. The main one.He’s the senior judge on the Supreme Court.He is the Supreme Court justice in charge.He’s the head of the Supreme Court.Yet, the ANES has coded these sorts of answers as incorrect. Furthermore, answers that are in the ballpark but werenot right on the money (e.g., “He’s a judge”) were codedas incorrect (Krosnick & Lupia, 2008). This approach tocoding has no doubt contributed to a misleading portrait ofAmericans as having less information about politics thanthey really possess.12/24/09 11:58:58 AM
1292 The Psychological Underpinnings of Political BehaviorThat’s not all. The measurement of political knowledgehas been misleading because of its reliance on verbal questions. Almost all of the survey questions assessing knowledge of government officials have provided their namesand asked respondents to indicate their jo
2004; Kressel, 1993). The journal Political Psychology has been in print since 1979. Articles on political psychol-ogy often appear in the top journals of social psychology and political science. Courses on political psychology are routinely offered at colleges and universities around the world. Since 1978, the International Society of Political
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